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A10 Networks Thunder SSL Insight (SSLi) vs Fortinet FortiADC comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

A10 Networks Thunder SSL In...
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
SSL/TLS Decryption (2nd)
Fortinet FortiADC
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

A10 Networks Thunder SSL Insight (SSLi) and Fortinet FortiADC aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. A10 Networks Thunder SSL Insight (SSLi) is designed for SSL/TLS Decryption and holds a mindshare of 22.3%, down 31.8% compared to last year.
Fortinet FortiADC, on the other hand, focuses on Application Delivery Controllers (ADC), holds 7.7% mindshare, down 9.4% since last year.
SSL/TLS Decryption Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
A10 Networks Thunder SSL Insight (SSLi)22.3%
Symantec SSL Visibility Appliance25.0%
Fidelis Elevate19.0%
Other33.7%
SSL/TLS Decryption
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiADC7.7%
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)11.6%
NetScaler11.6%
Other69.1%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

KM
Data Center Network Engineer at BRIDGETON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Enables our content filter to do its job without any noticeable delay
Its most valuable feature is its ability to do its job accurately, effectively, and very quickly. The amount of traffic that we have going through our system is astounding. We have 6,900 students and about 1,100 staff members. Most of our teachers and staff are connecting through our system. You add to that all the cell phones, the iPads, and all the computers, and then each individual website's connection, that's a lot of traffic in a period of one second. The delay with the SSL decryption turned on is almost unnoticeable. That is great because most SSL decryption solutions — a couple of competitors we did try — their devices crashed as soon as we turned decryption on.
Suraska Sanjaya - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Lead at Adapt Information Technologies (Pvt) Ltd
Application load balancing has improved traffic distribution and supports straightforward clustering
I did not explore the advanced features as I only performed load balancing in the application and cluster implementation. I need to study Fortinet FortiADC more. Regarding Fortinet FortiADC reporting, our customer has not requested the reporting part from us, and I have not considered that. There appears to be an advanced reporting part that I am not aware of. The advanced analytics part was not requested from us. The only thing customers expected was load balancing.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We have several proxies in our environment, so we localized internet traffic between these proxies. Instead of getting a really huge proxy box, according to our size, we can use three boxes and share the traffic with A10's load-balancer feature."
"This is one of those devices that, once you turn it on and it's functioning properly, you'll forget that you have it."
"By not renewing six proxy boxes, rather just three of them, it saved over $100,000."
"With the Thunder SSLi, we're better protected; we can stop use of VPN and proxies, are better protected against dirty traffic coming back to our schools, and having a secure decrypt zone with the equipment lowers the chances that our security infrastructure could possibly miss an attack."
"Its most valuable feature is its ability to do its job accurately, effectively, and very quickly. The amount of traffic that we have going through our system is astounding... The delay with the SSL decryption turned on is almost unnoticeable."
"The most valuable feature is its simplicity."
"The solution is less expensive than F5 or Imperva and is the most reasonably priced option available."
"We can do patches offline without causing customers outages. The web application firewall features, especially those related to the OWASP Top Ten, provide automated protections. This allows more flexibility in patching the backend applications. Additionally, it offers visibility into the requests being made to the applications, and you can't protect what you can't see."
"Key features include SSL Offloading, VM availability, and L7 load balancing."
"Because ADC is the intermediary between the servers and the end-user application, it gives thorough information about the traffic, what the problem is."
"I like the solution's load balance with DNS intelligence."
"The product has flexible and interesting licensing options."
"FortiADC helps application availability and improves user-response time, and in addition, the price is competitive."
 

Cons

"SSLi is a very powerful device. It has many features and to get them configured is kind of tough."
"It would be great if it supported SSL operations according to Active Directory users. For example, if we want to bypass one of the servers or a client's internet access for SSL interception, we have to do it according to the IP address. It would be better if we could do it according to the Active Directory username. A10 says they kind of support that but we haven't tested it."
"I would like them to have a better UI (better universal design)."
"There is one thing I would like to see changed. In their features for setting things up, there is a templating system that would normally assist clients. However, we had a better time setting up the device either through the command line or through the interface and not using the templates that were pre-installed. So there is room for improvement to the templates for initial installation."
"Fortinet specifies that the solution can be used for 1,000 clients, but actually we've found that you can't go above 400 for content compression and rewriting."
"The initial setup could be simplified."
"Technical support and documentation could both be improved."
"Fortinet has some drawbacks, and it can be a bit challenging to scale."
"If I need design help, they do not assist; they say it is a design issue they cannot support, and I must approach the system integrator."
"FortiADC is complex to configure so the interface should be improved."
"The product’s price could be reduced. Also, some of its features need to be more advanced."
"Because it is so generic, the documentation requires special attention. A person who has not worked on Fortinet FortiADC or a similar product will struggle to understand what the document is trying to say. The documentation could be more specific, and more detailed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing costs, yearly, are just under $15,000. Your initial cost of acquisition is obviously going to be more than $15,000..."
"We always pay for support. Any organization of our size who doesn't is asking for problems."
"When you purchase the equipment, you purchase the licensing and warranty. It's all fairly standard. We haven't been caught with anything surprising."
"Our basic license excludes features such as antivirus and IDS. Due to license limitations, some functionalities are not configured."
"I believe the price is good. It's fair. There are no extra costs."
"The solution could be more cost-effective."
"The price is competitive"
"The solution is less expensive than F5 or Imperva and is the most reasonably priced option available."
"They offer a perpetual license."
"I rate Fortinet FortiADC's pricing one out of ten. It is fixed."
"The product has average pricing. I rate its pricing a five out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?
For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you have to look for other ADC's like F5, Imperva, Radware, Fortinet, etc.
Do you recommend Fortinet FortiADC?
I recommend Fortinet FortiADC. My experience with Fortinet has been very positive. Our company has been using it for around five years. We mainly use FortiADC for the load balancing of application ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiADC?
Pricing is not considered on our side since we are the implementation team. Our pre-sales team considers the pricing and all the details.
 

Also Known As

Thunder SSLi
FortiADC Application Delivery Controller, FortiADC
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Klein Independent School District
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom, A10 Networks, Gigamon and others in SSL/TLS Decryption. Updated: October 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.